Since our successful open day at the end of October, we have been working along the eastern side of Bridewell Lane, where our excavations have revealed a series of what appear to be mainly Georgian and Victorian basements, complete with fireplaces, under what would have been Nos 1 – 4 Bridewell Lane.
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No. 4 Bridewell Lane: fireplace
We took the opportunity to have a quick look underneath the basement floor slabs of Nos 1-2, which showed that the basements, which were of buildings constructed after 1818, were dug into a layer of medieval garden soil and rubbish pits, one of which contained Roman pottery and tesserae from a mosaic that must have been disturbed nearby during the medieval period. We know that a mosaic was found just to the south under buildings fronting onto Westgate Street, and another to the north under Bluecoat House, so it is no surprise to find such evidence on the site. However, we believe that the Roman levels still lie at least a further 0.5m-1m below the level to which we needed to dig in this area of the site, so any Roman archaeology in that area of the site will be preserved beneath the new development.
Basement Room, Saw Close, Bath.
by Cotswold Geomatics
on Sketchfab
Further north we have also revealed the basements of Nos 9 & 10 Bridewell Lane (3D photo model of No. 9 basement above), which probably had their origins in the 17th-century, and had been altered later on, before they were infilled in the late 1850s to make way for the playground of the Bluecoat School. We know that these buildings were the houses of the pipemaker (No. 10) and pipe factory workers (No. 9), of the clay tobacco pipe factory revealed last month. The pipe factory has now been carefully infilled and covered over to protect it beneath the new development.
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Over the coming month our investigations will focus on the area beneath Nos 5-8 Bridewell Lane, at least some of which does not appear to have the deep basements seen at Nos 1-4 and 9-10, and will update again towards the end of the year.
